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Those of you who know me on social media know that I spent the weekend at two theme parks in the central Florida area. Both parks are “weapons-free zones” that have metal detectors and bag searches before you walk through the park gates, so surely you couldn’t get a gun or a knife through such air-tight security, right?

There’s been some talk about trunk/truck guns in a Facebook group I belong to, and most of the comments have been against them, citing the risk of having your gun stolen vs. you actually using a gun in your trunk to defend a life.

I can dig it.

However, isn’t that also true of guns inside the home? Despite that, no one who’s serious about guns advises against safely having a gun in the home for self-defense. I also understand that the idea of a trunk gun carries a lot of baggage with it, namely the “I’ll run back to my car, suit up, stop the bad guy and save the day!” sort of thing, and God knows (literally!) how many people suffer from that delusion.

I wrote a bunch of articles for Shooting Illustrated at the end of the year last year (something about writing articles that get clicks and not missing deadlines makes you popular with your editors. Go figure.).

Thanks to some hard work, a little luck and more than a little nepotism, a fantastic opportunity to bring a really, really cool product to market has opened up to me.
No, I am not quitting my day job, but yes, I will be very, very busy these next 120 days as I work with some very smart and talented people to help bring this idea to fruition.
To all my fellow gun owners and firearms trainers, all I can say is, prepare to have your mind blown.
Stay tuned.

I shot the fewest matches I’ve ever shot in one year, but I’m quite satisfied with almost every part of my pistol skill except my draw, and I’m working on that part every day.

Speaking of which, I’m on a regular dry-fire routine of ten to fifteen minutes of practice draws and trigger presses before I leave for work each day, and I’m doing at least a half-hour’s fast walking every night to get myself in some sort of shape other than “pear”.

While I haven’t been shooting much, my writing opportunities have really taken off. I’ve written a LOT for Shooting Illustrated and Ricochet, and I’ve added in the occasional article on Lucky Gunner as well.

Training-wise, the two-day class with Bob Vogel was well worth the money. If you’re looking for a class that will teach you pistol marksmanship, pure and simple, you’d be well served to take one of his classes.

SHOT Show was not in the cards this year, but NRA was, and it was wonderful to meet people like Andrew Branca, David Yamane and Tam for the first time and find out that they’re almost as nice in-person as they are online.

While I’m not working in the gun biz full time, my current job is one of the best I’ve ever had in my life, so I’m actually much, much happier than if I was slinging steel for a living. It was also nice to see some of my posts gain some traction inside the business, and I’m also working with a new startup developing a rather cool gadget for firearms training, but I can’t talk much about it right now.

Thank you, everyone, for coming by. I sincerely appreciate it, and have a happy and blessed New Year’s.

Ammo at guns stores costs more, on average, than ammo at discount stores or shopping for ammo online. This is why gun stores rarely stock ammo, because unless they have a range associated with the store, the ammo just sits there, taking up space and (more importantly) capital that can be flipped to something else.

People who go into gun stores to buy things rarely walk out with just that thing. TRUST me on this one.

Dear Local Gun Store: 500 business cards cost you $20 on Vistaprint. Design something with your logo and address on one side (You DO have a logo, don’t you?) and 10 small boxes on the other side. Every time the customer buys ammo at a certain price point or more, they get a stamp. Get 10 stamps? Free ammo.